Special to the Laredo Sun Heidy Guajardo (left) and Marco Antonio Coronado (center) listen attentively as Alex Rodriguez (right) addresses the father-daughter duo in the opening scene of Hispanic playwright Edwin Sanchez’s Broadway drama Unmerciful Good Fortune on Friday, June 12 at the Guadalupe and Lilia Martinez Fine Arts Center, room 102. The play is the first of three productions hosted by the Laredo Community College Summer Stock Theater Project. The final two plays Who’s On First and Match are set to premiere during back-to-back weekends on June 18 through 21 and June 25 through 28, respectively. Performances are scheduled Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and a Sunday matinee at 3 p.m. in the Martinez Fine Arts Center Theater. Tickets are $10 for adults or $5 for senior citizens and...

CNN Wild animals roamed the streets of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, on Sunday, after raging floodwaters damaged the city’s zoo and set many of the animals free. Twelve people died in the flooding, according to Civil Georgia, a news website run by the nongovernmental organization UN Association of Georgia. Several others were missing, and wolves, bears, big cats and even a hippopotamus were wandering the streets of the city, according to Civil.ge, a news agency funded by the EU and the UN. Of the zoo’s 600 residents, including fish and birds, about half were missing on Sunday, theTbilisi Zoo said. Some animals have been recaptured, Civil.ge reported. Others have been killed. Residents told to stay home But some animals were still roaming loose. Video from the city shows what appears to be a crocodile slithering down the city streets, as well as a hippopotamus standing around looking confused. Also among the escapees were lions, tigers, bears and wolves, the agency reported. Georgia’s prime minister, Irakli Garibashvili, asked residents to stay home while the animals are rounded up. The Ministry of Internal Affairs also urged everyone to stay indoors but said in a statement that the situation was “under full control.” All efforts are being made to find the animals quickly, “give them injections,” and get them back into the zoo, the ministry said. Two employees of the zoo were among the fatalities. The problems began before midnight Saturday. Heavy rainfall turned the Vere River, normally little more than a stream through the center of Tbilisi, into a torrent, the news agency reported. The raging river flooded significant portions of a highway, swept away cars and at least one small house, and flooded many other homes. Images on Tbilisi City Hall’s Facebook page showed roads washed out, hillsides collapsed and vehicles tossed about like toys. Rescue workers carried people on their shoulders through waist-high water. Police used a helicopter to evacuate 16 people from Akhaldaba, just west of Tbilisi, where heavy rain had damaged...

CNN A crewless Russian cargo space ship that had gone astray, has ‘ceased to exist,’ Russia’s space agency said Friday. The bulk of it burned up after re-entering Earth’s atmosphere. A few small fragments of Progress M-27M are expected to make it down to Earth. They shouldn’t crash down, but instead splash down. “Entry into the atmosphere occurred over the central Pacific Ocean,” Roscosmos said in a statement. The time of re-entry was 5:04 a.m. Moscow time (10:04 p.m. Eastern). Gone awry Progress M-27M, also known as Progress 59, was supposed to deliver supplies to the International Space Station, but overshot its mark. Russian ground controllers lost contact with the spacecraft soon after it launched on April 28. Though Roscosmos is still investigating the cause of the failed mission, preliminary evidence points to an accident in the third stage of the space craft’s carrier rocket, Russian state news agency TASS reported. Though the craft was not going to transport people, the failure will delay the return to Earth of some ISS crew members. They were scheduled to leave on May 14, but will have to sit tight until June. Roscosmos wants time to fully investigate the accident and carry out quality inspections on carrier rockets that have already been built and are waiting for launch. Food, fuel, oxygen The cargo ship was carrying more than 3 tons of food, fuel, oxygen, spare parts and scientific experiment hardware for the space station, according to NASA, but none of it is critical to ISS’ operation. Even if Russia hadn’t lost contact with the craft, the original plan was for Progress to burn up re-entering Earth’s atmosphere — albeit laden with garbage rather than a full load of equipment for the space station. The next planned resupply flight, which will be the seventh SpaceX commercial resupply services mission to the space station, is not scheduled to take off before June 19, NASA said. Roscosmos plans to launch a re-supply mission in late June or early July, TASS reported. Broadcast live streaming video on...

ABC News Spanish police found an 8-year-old boy hidden inside a small suitcase by a 19-year-old woman who had allegedly tried to smuggle him into Spain on Thursday, authorities told ABC News. The little boy, who ABC News is not identifying, was born in Ivory Coast and detected by scanners by customs in Ceuta, a small Spanish territory in North Africa. A police spokeswoman said the boy was scared when they opened the suitcase but had not been harmed. The Moroccan woman who hid him was taken into custody, authorities said. Spanish Interior Ministry via AP Photo PHOTO: In this photo released by the Spanish Guardia Civil on May 8, 2015, a boy curled up inside a suitcase is seen on the displays of a scanner at the border crossing in Ceuta, a Spanish city enclave in North Africa. Less than two hours after finding the boy, police located his father who had been living in the Canary Islands. Spanish newspaper, El Pais, reported that the woman had been paid by the father to carry the suitcase, but she was not related to him. Despite building a 20-foot high fence, Spain has been struggling in recent years with the influx of immigrants in Ceuta, and another enclave called Melilla. According to official statistics, over 4,300 people entered the two enclaves irregularly in 2013, compared with 2,804 in...

Adults can get trained for a technical career by signing up for a free apprenticeship program leading to a local certificate in Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration (HVACR) from Laredo Community College in partnership with Workforce Solutions for South Texas and Project GROW. Enrollment is currently under way for new and current LCC students, who can earn up to 12 credit hours through the apprenticeship program. The program is free for qualifying students. In order to qualify, the student must meet the following criteria: be 18 years of age or older; must be a high school graduate or hold a GED; they must be able to work in the United States; and should meet the Workers Investment Act (WI) eligibility criteria, which is typically aimed at assisting those with a low income. Classes offered within the apprentice program include: Basic Electricity for HVACR; Refrigeration Principles; and Refrigerators, Freezers and Air Conditioners, along with Texas Success Initiative (TSI) preparation courses. TSI courses are aimed at developing and strengthening the academic skills necessary for college-level courses. Armando Fonseca, Workforce Development Coordinator, asserts that the program will benefit students by offering them the practical guidance necessary to succeed in their career pathway, at no cost to the student. “This is the very first time we are offering the opportunity to students that are coming through adult education courses to register for an actual credit course, which is funded by grant monies through Project Grow,” Fonseca said. GROW stands for Growing Regional Opportunities for the Workforce. Students who complete the HVACR apprenticeship can move forward toward earning their one-year academic certificate. “The idea is to follow a career pathway through the HVACR program toward their eventual certificate,” Fonseca added. Classes are set to begin in July and will run Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Moore Vocational Building at the Ft. McIntosh Campus. For more information on the HVACR Apprentice Program, contact Patricia Barrera with Workforce Solutions South Texas at 794-6521 or at...